Twenty Favorite Criterion Collection Movies
(I could easily have produced a top-fifty list out of Criterion’s catalog. Reducing my choices to twenty was difficult; I gave up on reducing them to ten. Here they are, though, in alphabetical order, with no more than one film per director and with box sets disallowed.)
After Life (directed by Hirokazu kore-eda, 1998)
Apur Sansar (directed by Satyajit Ray, 1959)
Au Hasard Balthazar (directed by Robert Bresson, 1966)
Before the Rain (directed by Milcho Manchevski, 1994)
Being John Malkovich (directed by Spike Jonze, 1999)
Broadcast News (directed by James L. Brooks, 1987)
Dazed and Confused (directed by Richard Linklater, 1993)
Do the Right Thing (directed by Spike Lee, 1989)
The Exterminating Angel (directed by Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Fantastic Planet (directed by René Laloux, 1973)
The 400 Blows (directed by François Truffaut, 1959)
The Ice Storm (directed by Ang Lee, 1997)
Ikiru (directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1952)
La Jetée/Sans Soleil (directed by Chris Marker, 1963/1983)
Local Hero (directed by Bill Forsyth, 1983)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (directed by Terry Jones, 1979)
My Winnipeg (directed by Guy Maddin, 2007)
On the Waterfront (directed by Elia Kazan, 1954)
The Spirit of the Beehive (directed by Victor Erice, 1973)
Tampopo (directed by Juzo Itami, 1985)
— May 31, 2021